I have worked here since 2011 telling stories of the Earth as preparation for a history of the Intermontane Grasslands of Central Cascadia and the rainswept coast that keeps them windy and dry. Now I am presenting this history, step by step, as I have learned it, often from the land itself. The history of this region includes the Canadian colonial space “The Okanagan Valley”, which lies over the land I live in above Canim Bay. The story stretches deep into the American West, into the US Civil War, the War of 1812, and the Louisiana Purchase, as well into the history of the Columbia District of the Hudson’s Bay Company. In all, the story spans the Chilcotin and Columbia volcanic plateaus and the basins that surround them. In this vast watershed lie homelands as old as 13,200 years (Sequim) and 16,200 years (Salmon River.) That’s how far we are walking together here, who are all the land speaking.
Okanagan Okanogan 
Ha-ha. A friendly French woman in Lille once asked me, the visiting American, if I had ever had cuisses de grenouille. I think she was surprised when I answered, “Mais oui, pendant le camping.” Taste like chicken, if a bit moister. Sauteed, of course.
Beautiful common loon. Thanks.
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Very beautiful, always. and the bane of fishers.
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Where I grew up, I think great blue herons and mink were the leading cause of frog-death. (Except for barbaric local boys–mea culpa–who used BB guns until they became enlightened.
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A lot of tadpoles lost their lives to my interest as a boy, too. Even an albino one, once. Some made it, though.
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